Stanford Study: Indiana Charters Outperform Public Schools

Posted December 19, 2012

Indiana‘s charter schools are, for the most part, outperforming their public school peers according to a new report. The annual look at charter schools is published by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, known by the acronym CREDO, at Stanford University.

The group‘s director, Macke Raymond, says charter school students in Indiana learn more than they would had they attended the public schools to which they likely would have been assigned – an equivalent of two additional months of learning over the course of the year.

CREDO studied more than 15,000 students at 64 charter schools. Raymond says the numbers are achieved by matching the students at charter schools with the demographic equivalent of a student at the public school where they student would have been assigned.

The report also says charter schools in Indianapolis are outperforming other charter schools around the state in both math and reading.

It was also critical of charters sponsored by Ball State University, the largest charter sponsor in Indiana, saying it‘s schools mostly lagged behind other charters and, in some cases, fared worse than their attendant public schools.

Raymond says Ball State has been working with a national charter school organization and other experts over the last year, and says she expects Ball State‘s schools to improve when CREDO studies them next year.

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